


Matraprem

by CarminaVulcana



Category: Baahubali (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, mothers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-28
Updated: 2019-05-28
Packaged: 2020-03-26 07:21:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19001053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CarminaVulcana/pseuds/CarminaVulcana
Summary: First Meeting. Two mothers. One son.





	Matraprem

Who was a lowly woman? Was she lowly? Why did they insist that she was when she felt such immense pride in herself?

The dirt under her fingernails had come from working the earth. The _nathori_ that adorned her septum was made of some cheap alloy whose true constituents were unknown to her; but it had been made specially for her by her late grandfather. The vermillion between her eyes was not true vermillion at all. But she was happily married to a man who worshiped the very ground she walked on.

And her sun-kissed skin, darkened and hardened by the elements, was grateful for the simple single drape that covered her modesty while keeping her cool in the blazing afternoon heat.

Sanga had always thought of herself and her people as outcastes without any sense of negativity. In her little sanctuary, she was the chief’s wife, a strong woman; everyone followed her orders, and no one ever questioned her wisdom.

But outside Amburi, she was less than a nobody. People weren’t exactly bad to her. But they weren’t good to her either. Her kind simply didn’t exist in the realm of so-called civilized living. Those men with their silken jackets and slippers, those women with their ruby-studded gold armbands and stiff chokers—they called her lowly. But it made no sense to her. More importantly, they did not matter to her.

The language of the towns and cities was alien to her. Their food was tasteless. Their rituals were hollow. And their devotion to the Gods was selfish. They were liars and hypocrites for the most part.

But she bore them no ill will. They were just the way they were. The Gods had made them like that; foolish and prejudiced.

She was happy to not be a part of them.

And that was exactly how she had raised Sivudu. He didn’t belong with them either. With his wild, untamed hair, the tattoos that decorated his limbs, and the raw strength he relied upon for most anything—these were the ways of her people.

Why then, did the other woman look at him as if she knew him, like she had known him before too.

The other woman. The mother. She had dirt under her fingernails too. But unlike her own, those nails were chipped and broken as if they had never seen a moment of rest. However, nothing grew in a stone-floored cage. The hard work of those misshapen nails had always been in vain.

What made _her_ lowly? Why had she fallen so far despite being born a princess?

Mahishmati was the answer. Mahishmati; where the likes of Sanga did not dwell. Mahishmati; the kingdom that killed its king and condemned his wife and child to a long exile.

Maybe, that king had been different than these others. Maybe that’s why they had murdered him in cold blood.

The old slave’s story had certainly made him sound like a God come to earth. And Gods never fared well among men and demons.

Sanga forced her mind to stop wandering.

Any minute now, she would be meeting her. Devasena; her son’s biological mother.

It was surreal. Her son was a king. His biological mother had once been a princess. That woman had nourished him in her belly for nine months-- she, who had believed all these years that he would come for her even though everyone told her he was dead.

“Please come in,” a young maid came out to call Sanga inside.

Devasena was sitting on a daybed. She looked better than she had a few hours ago. Her greying hair, while still lifeless and brittle, was now combed and tied back in a neat bun. Her face was clean and devoid of the fine layer of dust and grime that had seemed stuck to her skin earlier. The shallow cuts above her left eye and lower lip had been treated with a herbal salve that faintly smelt of peppermint and turmeric.

“Namaste,” Devasena’s voice was soft and low. The underlying hint of hoarseness was the only indication that it hurt her to speak. “Please sit,” she gestured to the empty spot beside her.

Sanga would have felt more comfortable sitting on the floor, but she did not want to be rude, especially not to the Queen Mother of this kingdom and the true mother of her son.

For a long moment, the two women did not exchange any words.

Devasena took her time examining Sanga’s weather-lined face, her kind, brown eyes, and the hands that had held her child all these years.

It was more than a little absurd for her to imagine that her son had been raised by this Tribal woman from a far-flung village that probably did not exist on any map. She had changed his diapers, fed him milk, soothed his crying, stayed awake with him at night, sung lullabies to him, and seen the milestones of his life—his first smile, his first word… a series of firsts that she had longed to witness with her husband.

She felt robbed and cheated. She felt jealous. And for a single moment, the torment she had lived through in the last 25 years seemed inconsequential compared to the fact that she did not know what her son had looked like in his boyhood. That, among several other things she would never know, threatened to shatter her iron control like nothing else had for so long. It was silly. She would not be brought down by this. But how could she not. During her pregnancy, she and Amarendra had spent hours dreaming about their son. They had planned to build him a crib with sal wood. They would have sung him Kuntalan songs at night. His annaprasanna ceremony would have been celebrated with great pomp. And he would have grown into a fine little mischievous boy in front of their eyes. Devasena would have scolded him for being too bold. Amarendra would have partnered with him in his antics and hidden his misdeeds from her. And then, they would have both been in trouble. 

But none of it had come to pass. She only had the lonely, empty nights that would never do justice to everything she had lost, including precious memories of her child's formative years.

“Maharani,” Sanga gathered the courage to break the silence.

“Please call me Devasena. You are my son’s mother. I think there needs to be no formality between us.”

Sanga smiled and nodded. “That is true. You are very wise.”

“Wise?” she chuckled darkly. “If I were wise, none of this would have happened.”

“And yet, I can call myself a mother only because your family’s tragedy sent Sivudu my way.”

“What was he like as a child? I… you have no idea how many nights I spent just wondering what he was doing. When he turned four, I lay on the ground and imagined him by a lake, catching his own fish for the first time.”

“Well, then you weren’t very far off the mark. He did learn to catch fish rather young, only he was less than three when his father got him his first fishing rod.”

“Does he… does he call your husband ‘father’? Wait, don’t answer that. It is a stupid question. What else would he call him.”

“Yeah. He… he calls him father. And he calls me mother.”

Devasena did not meet Sanga’s eyes. She was afraid she would betray her fragile dignity and burst into tears.

All these years, she had kept herself alive with the hope that her child would come for her and be glad to have found her at last. Of course, in her heart she had prayed each day that he was happy and cared for. But a small part of her had secretly hoped that he missed her as well, that he knew his true mother was waiting for him.

From Sanga’s words, she could tell that had hardly been the case.

Had it not been for the strange twist of fate that led him to Avanthika, he would have never even realized who he was. And she would have died bitter after her endless wait.

“He was meant to find you,” Sanga said. Somehow, she sensed what was going through the other woman’s mind. “Please do not think of other possibilities or what might have happened in a different situation.”

“He is here,” Devasena acknowledged. “And that is all that matters.”

Her back was starting to hurt and she felt a heaviness in her head that she recognized too well. She was still experiencing the aftereffects of her captivity and the illness would not disappear magically. It would take its time.

“I am tired,” she admitted. “I would like to rest if you don’t mind. I know this is not decent behavior but…”

Sanga placed her hand upon the younger woman’s lips.

“Say no more. Please. You need the rest and we have all the time we need to get to know each other.”

Devasena did not need to be told twice. She allowed herself to lie down and close her eyes. The nightmare was over at last. And her son was still hers even as he was Sanga’s. He was like Kartikeya and Krishna. That thought comforted her as the gentle touch of sleep came and lulled her into slumber.

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
